Mr. Joe Noonan:

Sovereignty is shifting under our feet. There is a global context within which that 1960 legislation was passed and that global context in some sense changes and in some sense stays the same. Sovereignty has already been diluted significantly through our membership of the EU, which people voted for and have voted for further amendments. It is something that is not fixed and immutable. There are two impingements on sovereignty and on the right to say yes or no. One is a visible one like the P5 veto. The other is the invisible one, the hidden power. You will remember when Mr. Trichet told Brian Lenihan that he did not want a bomb to go off in Dublin. There are different ways of exerting pressure, which are not always visible. They may only become visible afterwards. We have to be alive to all of those.